Hiring an In-House Employment Lawyer: Many Associates, Few Partners

An HR head looking for an in-house employment lawyer recruits from one of the larger benches in private practice, and from one of the more junior ones. Sartori & Partners data show that employment lawyers made 102 moves from law firms to companies between May and October 2026, 10.7% of all such moves. That works out at 12.9 moves to a company for every hundred lateral moves between firms, close to the market's 13.1. Benefits and executive compensation lawyers, a much smaller group, went in-house at 17.1 per hundred. The difference that shapes a hiring plan is the level mix: associates are 61.6% of employment lateral moves and partners 22.4%, against a partner share of 27.7% across all practices.

Employment's share of moves to companies, 10.7%, matches its share of lateral moves between firms, 10.7%. Employment lawyers leave for companies in proportion to their weight in the market, no more and no less. Corporate lawyers behave differently: they were involved in 33.2% of moves to companies against 20.7% of lateral moves, so a general counsel hiring a deal lawyer meets a more willing pool than one hiring for the HR side.

Benefits and executive compensation lawyers moved at 1.3 times the employment rate. The count behind that rate is small, 24 moves over the six months, so read it as a rough size rather than a ranking. For a company the practical reading is this: an employment lawyer weighing a company offer is an ordinary case, and a search should start from a typical level of interest, not an unusually warm or cold one.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, employment lawyers made 1,512 moves between firms over the 12 months to October 2026. Associates were 61.6% of them and partners 22.4%, while across all practices partners made up 27.7% of moves, a gap of 5.3 points. Counsel took 15.2% of employment moves, a little above the market's 12.7%.

That mix lines up with what legal departments buy. Associates made up 76.7% of all moves from firms to companies in the 6 months to October 2026, and partners only 11.0%. A company opening its first employment role usually wants a mid-level lawyer who has handled agency charges, single-plaintiff claims and handbook reviews, and the employment bench holds more of those people, in proportion, than the market does.

The partner seam is thinner and not widening. Employment partner moves between firms held steady over the 12 months to September 2026, 333 against 310 the year before, inside the noise for counts this size. An HR head who needs a senior lawyer to run the function should plan for a smaller field than an associate search offers.

The benefits bench looks nothing like the employment one. Partners were 30.2% of benefits and executive compensation lateral moves over 12 months and counsel 19.8%, against 27.7% and 12.7% market-wide. Firms with 1,000+ lawyers took 61.9% of benefits lateral moves, against 46.9% for employment and 53.6% for the market.

The overlaps explain much of it. Of benefits lateral moves, 42.5% also carried employment work, 18.3% tax and 17.9% corporate. Plan design, equity awards and executive contracts sit inside large corporate and tax groups. The bench is also growing: benefits lateral moves rose 16.6% in the 12 months to September 2026, from 217 to 253.

It is concentrated in a few cities. New York held 17.5% of benefits lateral moves, London 12.7% and Chicago 8.3%, where the index against the market reached 196. A company that needs executive compensation or plan expertise is hiring out of big-firm corporate and tax groups in those cities, often at counsel level, and should screen for that background rather than for an employment litigator who also knows benefits.

Los Angeles held 11.0% of employment lateral moves over 12 months, an index of 218 against the market. San Diego reached 302, Seattle 217 and San Francisco 159. New York indexed at 68 and Washington at 34. California's own wage-and-hour rules keep a large local employment bar busy, and the figures reflect it.

Moves from firms to companies, across all practices, start most often in New York, which supplied 16.1% of them, then London at 8.2%. An HR head in California or the Pacific Northwest has a deeper local employment pool than the market average suggests. A New York company is recruiting where employment lawyers are a smaller slice of lateral moves than in the market as a whole, and may need to widen the search to other cities or to remote candidates.

Employment hiring between firms is concentrated. The ten firms that hired most took 30.0% of individual employment lateral hires, against 12.9% for the ten most active hirers across all practices. Small firms matter more as well: firms under 150 lawyers took 11.5% of employment lateral moves, against 9.7% in the market. Employment lawyers also move alone: team moves were 0.5% of employment lateral moves, against 1.5% overall.

Above all, this is a litigation bench. Of employment lateral moves, 83.4% also carried litigation. A company that wants an adviser on policy, investigations and day-to-day HR questions, rather than a trial lawyer, should test for counseling experience early in the process, because most of the people on this bench were hired by firms to defend claims.

Start at associate or counsel level. With associates at 61.6% of the employment bench and 76.7% of all moves into companies, a mid-level associate hire draws on the deep end of the pool. Give a partner-level head of employment more time: partners are 22.4% of employment lateral moves, a thinner seam than the market's 27.7%, and the number moving between firms is not growing.

Treat benefits and executive compensation as a separate search. That practice accounted for 1.8% of lateral moves between firms, its movers are more senior, and 61.9% of them joined firms with 1,000+ lawyers. Recruit where the employment bench is deepest: Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle and San Francisco all index above the market. Sartori & Partners builds these figures from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.